


Sing Down The Skies

by valamerys



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fake Dating, Post-ACOMAF, SAD fake dating, Slow Burn, but like
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9592781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: “I’m going to pretend to fall in love with you.”All the air goes out of the room. Lucien is so uncomprehending he’s sure he must have misheard her. “What?”[Elain comes to the Spring Court. It's not that it doesn't go well, it's that it couldn't.]





	1. Chapter 1

I.

The negotiations have ended such that only one of Feyre’s sisters will be released to the Spring Court. Lucien is not sure of the particulars as to why. All of the conflict, all of the plotting, all of Tamlin’s rage and Feyre’s simpering smiles and Rhysand’s dramatic demands have faded into a dull buzzing he no longer bothers to parse.

The sister they send will be Elain, Tamlin tells them. He sounds proud, like this is some kind of _gift_ that he’s giving them both, though it is presumably what Rhysand and Feyre decided upon beforehand and then manipulated Tamlin into thinking he accomplished.

Feyre’s fake concern is almost insufferable. She bites her lip, puts a hand on her heart, leans into Tamlin for support as her eyelashes flutter in an imitation of feeble strength. “Oh, of course I wish you could have got them both, but it will be such a relief to have Elain away from them. Nesta’s always been so strong, I’m sure—“ here she falters, so that Tamlin can wrap an arm around her waist and murmur concernedly, and she can give him a weak smile of gratitude, “—I’m sure she can bear it for a little longer.”

It’s almost insulting, the levels of Tamlin’s stupidity her charade is revealing. There is no negotiation in the world that would have stopped Feyre—the _real_ Feyre—from _demanding_ both of them back, from crossing Prythian and personally dismantling the Night Court brick by brick to get them back, if she thought they were really in even the slightest amount of danger. And Tamlin, who just smiles dotingly and kisses her on the forehead, should know that. Tamlin should know that better than anyone.

“You should be excited, Lucien,” It takes Lucien a moment to even register that Tamlin’s speaking to him, voice laced with a tense expectation: _Feyre is performing her gratitude, why aren’t you?_

“I am excited,” Lucien says smoothly, giving Tamlin the barest of acceptable smiles. “Of course I am. I’m sorry, please excuse me.”

He feels the familiar suggestion of Tamlin’s displeasure darken the room as he leaves. Once he would have tried harder to avoid it—once most of his waking energy went to monitoring the swells and dips in Tamlin’s mood, trying to work around it to minimize collateral damage to himself, to Feyre, to the entire damn estate.

He doesn’t try so hard anymore.

Even as his instincts scream _danger_ at him, he can’t find it in himself to care the way he used to about mollifying his high lord. Something in Lucien broke in that throne room—sometimes he thinks it would be a mercy, a relief for Tamlin to _lose it_ the way Lucien used to fear so badly. At least it would be something other than the motions of paperwork and patrol that now feel like a mockery, a pretense that nothing is wrong as though they haven’t done something monstrous in their alignment with the king. As though Feyre isn’t playing out an elaborate pageant at all hours of the day that it hurts Lucien to watch. It’s a small mercy that Ianthe vanished, preempting Tamlin’s retribution for what she pulled with Feyre’s sisters, but Lucien thinks he preferred even fending off her cold, sharp hands to how ubiquitously sick he feels with himself now.

He has no idea what he feels about the bond. About _Elain_. Some part of him that snarled _get her back_ has not stopped saying it; _get her back get her back get her back_ beats in his chest like a heartbeat at night while he tries to sleep. Sometimes he says her name aloud into the darkness, whispered like a confession, just to see what it tastes like.

It tastes like terror, and confusion. Not all of it his.

 

II.

“Help me.”

Lucien does not respond.

“You know what went on here while I was gone, you know what Tamlin and the king are planning. I need your help. And you need mine.”

“We’ve had this conversation, Feyre.” His voice is empty. It hurts, it hurts more every time, to say “I can’t help you destroy him.”

He almost wishes he could. He doesn’t doubt aligning with Feyre would be the smart thing to do, or that it’s the right thing. But—he’s as incapable of pretending for Feyre’s sake as he is for Tamlin’s. He’s been scraped so raw that any capacity for deceit came right off.

If this rotted-out semblance of loyalty is all he has left, so be it.

“You deserve better than this,” Feyre says quietly, leaning in a little. There are more guards around the manor to be wary of, now, some of Hybern’s along with the Spring sentries. “Lucien, this is killing you. I _know_. It almost killed me.”

Lucien just—closes his eyes in pain. Since they came out from under the mountain, almost, his life has been a tapestry of guilt. He knows Feyre doesn’t mean to remind him of it—remind him of how he failed her—but it’s the inevitable conclusion.

Feyre’s voice is lower when she tries a different angle. “When Elain gets here, what do you want her to find?”

His eyes snap open. “Do not.” He says, very softly. “ _Do not_. Use her against me.”

Feyre’s expression shutters. “I’m not—“

Lucien sits forward. “But I’m supposed to do anything I can to make myself more palatable to her? Is that right? I’m supposed to help you so I look like I’m on the correct team, so she’ll be more willing to consider me?”

Her composure is impressive. Rhysand has rubbed off on her. “That’s not how I meant it, Lucien. I’m just trying to help you,” she says tightly. “And we _are_ on the same team.”

Feyre is wrought steel, sharp and hard and bright—he doesn’t have a fraction of the energy required to argue with her.

“She shouldn’t be coming, Feyre, regardless,” he says instead. “It’s not safe here.” Admitting implicitly that the Night Court—and Rhysand’s care— _is_ safe is like swallowing rocks, but there’s nothing else for it. Feyre thinks they’re safe there, so they must be, even if it goes against every instinct he possesses.

“You think I don’t know that?” Feyre cries, gesturing at the door where Tamlin left them not fifteen minutes ago. “I don’t want my sisters on the same _continent_ as Tamlin or the king. We went through a thousand plans that didn’t involve them, but Elain insisted she could handle it, and…” She falters. “Any other plan had too many variables. It’s just the simplest way.”

“It’s the simplest way to what? To make Tamlin breathe down my neck?” An ungenerous, mindless snap, but Lucien can’t think further than _Elain insisted she could handle it_. She… volunteered, then? What does that mean?

“We need to give Tamlin a win, we need him distracted for a few days so Rhys can—“ Feyre catches herself, mouth snapping shut. Of course. Lucien won’t help her, so he doesn’t get to hear the plans. He’s not sure he wants to know, anyway.

Silence stretches between them for a moment, Lucien feeling the heat of the flames waver and flicker on his face, before Feyre tentatively speaks again.

“Rhys says she’s taken it hard. Her and Nesta's... making.”

Lucien stares resolutely into the fire.

Feyre goes on. “They were all surprised, when she said she’d come. But you should know she’s not well.”

Lucien gets up, goes to the decanter of wine on the table near the window. He’s not sure he can have this conversation sober. “I wouldn’t expect her to be.”

They’ve talked about Elain before, but only small, concrete things. She was engaged. She gardens. She’s their father’s favorite. Never anything about after the cauldron, never the circumstances they’ve found themselves in. Lucien doesn’t even know if the bond has snapped into place for her the way it did for him; he suspects it hasn’t, that the sensations he gets of her are one-sided, but—he doesn’t know. There’s so much he’s not sure of.

He drains half his glass of wine in one swallow, as Feyre clenches her hands in her lap. “For what it’s worth, Lucien, if she had to find her mate that day… I’m glad it was you. If circumstances were different, I think you and Elain might like each other.”

Lucien looks out the dark window and doesn’t answer, nursing the drink to stave off the stab of fear that sends through him—because it makes him _hope_. And he knows he’ll pay for hope in pain, eventually. He always does.

The clock chimes ten.

“I should go,” Feyre says finally, rising. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lucien nods absently.

When Feyre’s gone, a handful of moments pass, quiet. And then Lucien turns and smashes the empty glass into the wall, the terrible shattering sound reverberating through his bones as glass rains to the floor.

 

This fic is also on [tumblr](http://valamerys.tumblr.com/tagged/mine)


	2. Chapter 2

III.

The designated meeting spot is a clearing near the border, a vague approximation of neutral territory. Tamlin stocks it so full of guards, some Hybern’s men, some their own (is there a difference anymore?) that the whole field glints with weapons, like they’re launching into battle. Rhys brings the shadowsinger and the blonde woman, three figures in black against an army of gold. Lucien gets the distinct impression it’s still not a fight the spring court would win.

The emissary assigned to the task approaches the High Lord of Night and exchanges a few words of formality, Tamlin standing stoic behind a line of soldiers—the word _coward_ flashes hot through Lucien’s mind, and he tries half-heartedly to crush the thought. Next to him, Feyre’s eyes are locked on Rhysand, her expression unreadable. Tamlin shifts to put an arm around her  and for a moment, it looks like she might break, tear the arm off and run to Rhys and end the whole charade right there, but she doesn’t. She recovers and gives him a weak smile.

Lucien can’t make out the words of the emissary, but Rhys nods, makes a gesture to the blonde, who winnows away. Lucien feels his heart jump into his throat against his will. There’s a moment where nothing happens—the trees rustle far above their heads, Rhysand looks cold and imperious, there is the faintest sound of shifting armor from the ranks around them as they wait.

And then the woman returns, holding his mate by the arm.

Lucien stops breathing, a rush of _Elain_ consuming his senses even from this distance. It is only with three hundred odd years of practice that he’s able to school himself into stillness, into apparent indifference, as relief and panic and dissatisfaction and fear war in his throat.

She’s plainly dressed, a little dirty—like she actually was a prisoner; the thought makes a growl build in his throat—but looks unharmed. It’s not good enough; Lucien feels the overwhelming instinct to winnow to her, to shield her from Night and Spring both, to ask her very intently if she’s alright, to hold her until he’s convinced. To take her somewhere far away from all of this and not ever bring her back.

The woman releases her, and Elain takes an unsure step forward. Lucien’s fingernails dig into the flesh of his palms. The spring court Emissary says something to her, extends a hand, and she takes it quickly, follows him away from her “captors” without looking back.

Someone lets out a tiny, strangled sound, and for a moment Lucien thinks it’s him—but Feyre is pushing through the soldiers, ignoring Tamlin’s murmured command to _stay here,_ and almost stumbles in her haste to embrace her sister. They cry and laugh all at once, Elain’s thin arms going around Feyre. Tamlin looks at Lucien, expecting some reaction, no doubt, but Lucien doesn’t move, keeps his face a mask of perfect blankness. He dimly notes that Rhys and his associates have vanished behind them, the transaction complete.

When the sisters break apart, teary, Feyre does what Lucien wants to do and wipes a smudge of dirt from Elain’s cheek, assessing her breathlessly. “Are you alright?” 

He can sense Elain’s emotions like holding a bird in his palm—small, fluttering, _alive_ : anxiety, bone-deep fear, determination.

“I’m fine,” Elain says, giving her a brave smile.

It’s the first time he’s heard his mate’s voice. His composure cracks, the breath he draws shuddering as Feyre takes Elain’s hand and draws her towards Tamlin. Towards _him_.

“Elain, this is Tamlin,” Feyre has remembered herself, her free hand caressing Tamlin’s arm. “My fiance.”

Elain bobs into a curtsy. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, High Lord. Thank you for everything you’ve done. For all of us,” she says sweetly, if a little shakily. She’s playing a role too, Lucien realizes, one of _grateful prisoner freed_ , to corroborate Feyre’s thin story of her own “kidnapping,” to maintain the polish on the version of the Night Court they’re feeding Tamlin. The more he looks, the more holes he sees in her costume. She’s dirty, but there’s no grime under her nails; her hair is tangled but not greasy. It doesn’t make him feel better.

Tamlin nods, clasps her hand in some show of paternal comfort. “Welcome to the Spring Court, Elain.” He’s a little awkward, a little gruff about it, but it’s clear he’s pleased.

“And… Feyre nods at him, says gently, “You’ve met Lucien.”

Elain seems to hesitate before meeting his gaze, and Lucien wonders if she’s been avoiding looking at him—but then she does. She’s exactly as he remembers her, her features burned into his memory.

“Hello, Lord Lucien.”

His heart twists. “Hello, Elain.”

It feels strange and perfunctory and totally inadequate. He needs to tell her everything. There is nothing else to say. He’s suddenly once again claustrophobic with the need to spirit her away, to hide them both from the hundred unwelcome eyes that watch their meeting.

Thank the cauldron for Feyre, who takes Elain’s arms and breaks the moment, begins fussing over her and assuring her they’ll get her cleaned up. She steers Elain towards the manor, prompting their entourage to follow.

Lucien hangs back, trying to stop his mind from reeling. He shrugs off Tamlin’s supportive clap on the shoulder as he passes.

 

IV. 

There’s been a lovely dinner prepared for the four of them, and Lucien does not think he could possibly bear it. He tells Tamlin he’s going to skip supper and retire early, feels Tamlin’s irritation gather like storm clouds.

“Elain will be there.” It’s not an order, but it sounds like one.

“I’m aware,” Lucien says. “But I’m not feeling well.” By which he means _I would rather have the attor gnaw my arm off than my first real conversation with my mate be a performance for you to scrutinize._ He supposes he could circumvent that—talk to Feyre, steal Elain for the half hour before the dinner, show her the gardens, perhaps. But something about that feels wrong. Doubtless she needs her sister’s company more than she needs his.

Tamlin and Lucien hold each other’s gaze for a moment, the push and pull of power tangible between them as Tamlin decides whether or not he’ll insist upon this.

“Very well,” he grunts, and Lucien tries not to exhale in relief too obviously. “I’m sure she’ll be disappointed.”

 

V.

Alis is helping Feyre, of course, and now, by extension, Elain too. _Elain asked to see you_ , she whispers to him later that night.

After dinner, Tamlin, mood dramatically improved (by Feyre’s wheedling, no doubt), had told him where Elain’s room was. It might have been innocent, a simple encouragement to get out of the way an inevitable conversation—but Tamlin had said it with a tone that suggested things other than conversation. As if Lucien didn’t feel sick enough about this entire situation already.

The manor feels like enemy territory now, something to sneak around in. There are too many guards, too many unfamiliar faces he passes on his way upstairs, too many eyes following him—but mercifully, the hallway in question is empty.

He knocks on the door, feeling like his hand moves of its own accord. He can hear her on the other side, can feel her nervousness spike at his knock, can anticipate the exact moment she cracks the door open. Is it going to be like this every time they make eye contact for the rest of eternity? A lightning bolt to Lucien’s chest?

She’s bathed, and now wears a soft white dressing gown; her dark gold hair gleams in the dim light. He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she. Instead she just retreats to sit on the bed, leaving the door open for him. Lucien lingers there after he closes it, unsure where it’s appropriate for him to _go_.

Elain tugs a blanket half on to her lap, her hands twisting it. She won’t quite look at him again—if he’s not mistaken, her eyes are a touch red, face just a little swollen. Her gaze darts here and there, and finally to a chair near the fireplace that she gestures to. “You can sit, if you like.”

He does, with slow, measured movements. He still doesn’t speak—there’s a thousand things he needs to ask her, but he wants her to go first. There is so little he can do for her, nothing that can possibly balance out the horrors she’s been thrust into, but he can give her this, he can surrender the power, the control, when they’re together.

“You weren’t at dinner,” she says finally. It’s not an accusation, just an observation. An acknowledgement that he was clearly meant to be and chose otherwise.

“Should I apologize?”

She plays with the edge of the blanket. “I was relieved, actually.”

It’s not an insult—just a confirmation that she thinks as he does. That this, this meeting, should belong to them, and them only. The bond throbs between them like a fresh wound; Lucien feels it the way you can feel a heartbeat in your own damaged flesh.

“How are you?” He asks. A clumsy question if there ever was one, ridiculously mundane given their circumstances. But they have to start somewhere.

She hesitates. Her fingers pick and pluck at the blanket. Is that a nervous habit? Every tiny motion, every detail, is magnified between them, and he wants to know everything about all of it. He wants to understand her, _devour_ her in ways he hardly even understands. 

She lets out a long breath, eyes half-lidded. There is something in her that is still a thousand miles away, or perhaps locked within her, behind a thousand layers of loss. “I’m… sad. That sounds silly, I know, but—“

“It doesn’t,” he says, softly, fiercely.

It falls quiet between them. The sounds of the spring court soften it, the crickets and frogs in the distance a reminder of life outside of this building that may as well be their prison.

“And how are you?” Elain says finally. His instinct is something flippant, something deflective. But he owes her more than that.

“I’m scared,” he says. It’s true in a dozen different ways, let her take her pick. He presses on haltingly, a prompt. “Feyre told me that you asked to come here.”

Something draws in around her eyes. “They wanted to send Nesta. they thought…” There’s a stray thread in the blanket, and she pulls at it, unravels it. “They thought I wasn’t strong enough. But I knew it should be me. I’m worth more, since I’m your mate; Rhys could drive a harder bargain with Tamlin.” She says it emotionlessly, like it’s not _completely horrifying_ that Lucien has inadvertently turned her into a bargaining chip.

“And Nesta should stay in the Night Court,” she goes on. “They’ll teach her to fight. Cassian is there. She’ll be happy there, eventually, I think.”

_And what about you?_ Lucien wants to ask.

“Lucien, I—“ Elain pauses. “There’s something I need you to know, about my being here. About my helping Feyre.”

Whatever Lucien expects her to tell him, it’s not what she does. Her hand goes to the necklace she’s wearing, which is half-hidden below the neckline of her nightgown.

“I’m going to pretend to fall in love with you.”

All the air goes out of the room. Lucien is so uncomprehending he’s sure he must have misheard her. “What?”

“I’m going to pretend to fall in love with you.” She’s looking at the floor, not at him; clearly it’s hard for her to say. But her voice is steady, older than her years. “We needs Tamlin thinking he’s winning, that he’s taken care of everything and it’s all falling into place. We need him relaxed and smug and stupid.”

Her eyes fasten on his, finally, and they both know he knows he understands her. The manor has become a dollhouse, and Feyre is arranging them all just so, to entertain a dangerous blonde child.

Elain’s voice is very quiet as she says “He _got me_ for you.”

As though Elain is some kind of _thing_ , like it’s Lucien who is a petulant child and Elain is a shiny toy that was purchased to placate him. It’s a repulsive thought, and the most painful part is that Lucien can’t deny it: of course that’s how Tamlin sees this. The parts of him that do it on instinct now grapple for some excuse, some lifeline to cling to, but the excuses for his behavior—for his _mentality_ —slip further from Lucien’s grasp day by day.

“Or he thinks he did, anyway,” Elain goes on. If she “But Feyre and I need to let him keep thinking it. So I’m going to pretend to be happy and I’m going to pretend to fall in love with you.”

Lucien doesn’t have the faintest idea how to respond to that. It… makes sense, on a certain level; maybe he should have anticipated it, after seeing her play into Feyre’s facade this afternoon.

“More than anything, I hate to… ask you to play along. I know, Feyre told me, how much Tamlin means to you, how loyal you are to him..." She trails off, at a loss. "It's abominable of me to ask you to deceive him, but I—"

"But there's no other way," Lucien fills in softly.

“I’m sorry,” she says, so quiet that they’re less actual words than the suggestion of them, and Lucien is shaking his head—

“Don’t you dare be sorry,” he says. It comes out broken, a mess of all the things he needs to say to her. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I _am_ sorry. About everything. About the bond, about how I’ve put you in danger because of it, about whatever part of me could have stopped all of this from happening and didn’t. About everything that’s happened to you and everything you feel like you have to do now because of it.”

Elain looks caught off guard by the sudden confession, her hand frozen gripping the charm of her necklace. The expression on her face is pain, but it’s not her own, it’s pain for _him_ and that’s so much worse.

“I don’t blame you for anything, Lucien,” it’s pure compassion, raw and strained. “You know that, don’t you?”

He does. And it’s all but killing him. Anything, _anything_ would be better than this. If she loathed and despised him it would still be better than this… resignation to her own misery, this gentle despair. Elain is as kind in suffering as she must be in joy: she does not blame _anyone_ , her pain has not grown sharp edges and lashed out the way his would, the way most people’s would. It is just the opposite. In the gaping absence of her own happiness, she is still concerned with others’. With _his_ , even though she does not know him, has every reason to resent him.

The bond lets him see Elain’s anguish and her _goodness_ with such searing clarity it’s unbearable.

“Of course I’ll help you, Elain. Of course,” is all he says by way of answer.

Elain blinks rapidly, and Lucien realizes with a sickening lurch she’s teary-eyed again, and trying to hide it from him. There’s a matching rush of stifled embarrassment from the bond—does she even know he can feel her? Her mental shields don’t seem to be up; surely Rhysand taught her how to use them.

“It’s late,” he says, standing. There are still so many things he would ask her; he’s more confused than when he came, rather than less, but he’ll spare her what embarrassment he can. “I should go.”

Elain just nods, not looking at him again.

The bond crawls up his spine in dissatisfaction as he makes to leave rather than comfort her, rather than obliterate whatever made his mate upset. He ignores the instincts as best he can, but he has to pause at the door, ask her the one thing he _cannot_ go another night without knowing.

“Elain, what…” He looks back at her. “What is it that you feel, of the bond?”

She sniffs slightly, her brow creasing. “Nothing… strong. Just something like a thread, I suppose. I can feel that it’s tied to you.” He remembers the way she stared at him, wet hair stuck to her forehead. “But nothing else.”

Lucien grips the door handle almost hard enough to break it, flush with simultaneous relief and terror. She doesn’t _feel_ him with the raw, painful intensity that he does her, thank the cauldron, the bond has not snapped into place for her yet, but oh gods, it will, it will if they keep being around each other, she should never have come here, he shouldn’t be here right now—

“Goodnight, Elain,” he manages, before leaving her to her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm exhausting EVEN MYSELF with the angst levels if its any consolation

**Author's Note:**

> hello naughty children it's angst time >:)


End file.
